


I Saw it in a Dream, Once

by Sunny (AGardenOfSunflowers)



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe, Dreams, Multi, Rey - Freeform, Rey Skywalker, Reylo - Freeform, Slow Burn, The Force Awakens, he's an angsty boi, just a little teaser to keep me on task, slight angst, some real suffering gonna happen for you sad stans, thank u for coming to my TEDTalk, then again any Kylo Ren fic that says no angst is probably lying to you, this is going to be one for the sad Ben Solo stans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:07:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24459436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AGardenOfSunflowers/pseuds/Sunny
Summary: Like his grandfather Anakin Skywalker, Kylo Ren starts having dreams - visions. But unlike his grandfather, these are not visions of the future; instead, Kylo sees into a timeline where Ben Solo still exists. He tries to keep the visions at bay, but the images continue to resurface time and time again, making him feel the sorrow and loss of his old life - a life that could have been - like a fresh wound, making him question his resolve as the grandson of Darth Vader... and making him yearn for the life he sees in his dreams.





	I Saw it in a Dream, Once

_Ben._ The name rung out, echoing inside his mind. _His_ name, in a past life.

 _Come home._ The voice was female, familiar. Older. He didn’t want to say her name, not even in his mind, didn’t want to dredge up the feelings he so desperately tried to keep buried under lock and key in the darkest recesses of his thoughts. It was almost as if saying her name out loud might conjure her in the waking world, solid and present, like a truth he did not want to face but forced to, regardless. In fact, it was the very _last_ thing that he wanted. 

He could almost see the shape of her through the hazy fog of his dreams, a silhouette among billowing clouds of ash-coloured mist. It looked as though she had stretched her hand out to him, begging him to close the distance and close his fingers around hers. 

_Ben, sweetheart–_

Kylo Ren jolted awake, sitting upright in his bed. He looked around, searching the darkened room and allowing his mind to register that he was still in his quarters aboard his star destroyer. His breathing was laboured, and he ground his teeth together, trying to quiet the agitated breaths. His skin was coated in sweat, dampening his forehead, and beading on his neck and across his chest. His dark hair was plastered to his temples.

Eventually, when he’d slowed his breathing, he swung his legs out of the bed, resting his bare feet on the cold floor. The chill made him shiver, and he leaned forward, elbows to knees as he tried to put his composure back into place, piece by piece. He dragged the back of a hand across his forehead, and it came away wet, which only served to stoke his agitation. It wasn’t often that he dreamed of her, and even when he did, he would never admit to how much it truly affected him. He despised the way in which even just the thought of her seeped into the cracks of the walls he had so carefully tried to put up around himself. It felt as if someone were rubbing salt into wounds he didn’t care to admit were even there to begin with. But despite the fact that it truly did bother him, that every fibre of his being was screaming for him to forget and move on, he closed his eyes and gave into the small but _present_ nagging feeling in his chest that taunted him and told him to close his eyes once again and to think hard. He tried to replay his dreams in his mind; they were fragmented, swirling together to make jumbled pictures, but nothing more. There were gaping black gaps amongst the vibrant swirls, and anything that might otherwise paint a solid picture bled slowly from his memory when he woke up, filtering through his fingers like sand as he tried desperately to make sense of them. He knew that the best course of action would be to stop entertaining whatever it was that he was seeing and wipe the images from his thoughts. But even still, he couldn’t completely bring himself to do it. It infuriated him.

He opened his eyes once again, standing from his bed and pacing his quarters in the dark. Slowly, his heartbeat quieted in his ears, the restless feeling falling silent as he came to a halt in front of a small pedestal. The pedestal was black, polished to a shine in which he could see his own reflection; hair tousled from his uneasy sleep, loose fitting black trousers, bare feet. The warmth in his face had cooled, but some of the colour still remained, and even in the reflection it stood out starkly in comparison to the fair skin of the his neck and chest. 

Atop the pedestal sat a helmet, battered and half melted away. The sight of it fostered a feeling of discomfort, simultaneously horrifying in its own right, but also a sickly ghost of the glory that it would have been in its original form. The triangular grill at the front of the mask was shriveled and decayed, and not unlike the decomposing remains of a human skull. Kylo reached out a hand, as if to touch the helmet, but then pulled his fingers into a tight fist, dropping it back to his side. After a moment, he continued to pace slowly, before eventually coming to stand in front of a window, a small porthole that looked out into the vast expanse of space. 

As he stood there, he brought his mind back to the present. His ship would soon be approaching Jakku, a desert wasteland home to thieves and scavengers. But most importantly, they had finally learned that it was also here on the planet Jakku, in the settlement Tuanul where the last piece of the map was being kept – the one that would direct them to the hiding place of the last Jedi. Thinking about him brought a sour taste to Kylo’s mouth and a tightness to his shoulders that was reflexive, making him clench his jaw as he imagined how satisfying it would be to run the old man through with his lightsaber and watch the life drain from him until he was lifeless and cold. It didn’t matter what he had to do, he would get that map piece regardless of the cost. In the end, killing the Jedi would serve the Supreme Leader’s bigger goals, and Kylo knew that. But more importantly, it was something that he had been waiting to do for the last decade of his life. Now that it was in his sights, he wasn’t prepared to let that satisfaction slip out of his grasp. 

Kylo lifted and pulled back his hand, still clenched into a fist as it had been when he had stood in front of his Grandfather’s helmet. He suddenly and without hesitation swung the fist forward, slamming it into the wall next to the porthole he had been staring out of. He exhaled from his nose as slowly and steadily as his body would allow him to, nostrils flaring as his chest heaved. The dreams, the vague and hazy images, and the sound of the woman’s voice left his mind as pain shot through the small bones of his hand and wrist, but still he reveled in the delight that burned through him like fire at the thought that he would finally get what he deserved: Luke Skywalker’s death.


End file.
